Jon Hamm channels Don Draper in this thoughtful true-crime thriller

In February 1977, Indianapolis businessman Tony Kiritsis took an executive from his mortgage broker, Richard Hall, hostage for 63 hours using a “dead man’s line” – a homemade alteration to a shotgun, where a wire placed around Hall’s neck was connected to the trigger.

Any sudden movements, such as Kiritsis letting go of the gun if he was shot, and the trigger would fire the gun. The device left local police helpless, allowing Kiritsis to leave Hall’s office and hijack a police car to hole up in his apartment, wired with explosives.

Believing himself to be squeezed out of a real-estate scheme by his mortgage brokers, Kiritsis demanded $US5 million ($7 million), a public apology from the brokers, and a chance to explain his position via an interview with his favourite local radio host Fred Heckman.

Gaining sympathy and outright support from a vocal portion of the public who also felt cheated, Kiritsis was, for many, a vigilante figure not unlike how some view Luigi Mangione.

Mangione’s 2024 fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson certainly hangs over Hollywood’s not one, but two, dramatisations of Kiritsis’ crime in 2026, even if both were in development prior. There’s American Hostage, a miniseries starring Jon Hamm and Giovanni Ribisi (itself based on a 2022 podcast play also starring Hamm), as well as Gus Van Sant’s recently released film Dead Man’s Wire, starring Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery and Colman Domingo (on VOD, inspired by 2018 documentary Dead Man’s Line).

Which is worth your time? Dead Man’s Wire is the more electric – a loving, vibrant ode to ’70s filmmaking, essentially Van Sant’s chance to make his own Dog Day Afternoon – while American Hostage is far more thought-provoking albeit, with eight 40-50 minute episodes, sluggish.

Where the film focuses on the crime itself, lingering on the sickly rising tension between Kiritsis and Hall, American Hostage centres on Heckman. It’s more interested in exploring the media’s role in the saga than its perpetrator’s psychology.

“This could be a story about a mad man taking his mortgage broker hostage, or an indictment on the American dream – or both,” says Heckman, perhaps more motivated by careerist aspirations than journalistic integrity. Played by Hamm, it’s a role reminiscent of Don Draper – and not just because of Heckman’s suave suits.

Hamm’s best scenes come via split-screen with Kiritsis (a well-cast Ribisi, who can switch at any second between quirky charm and menace), as his face cracks with unease before composing himself, aware that a man’s life hangs on his ability to say the exact right string of words. That weariness builds throughout American Hostage, with Hamm’s minute expressions – used so well in Mad Men – revealing an inner turmoil that, while fascinating, probably could have been conveyed in five episodes rather than eight.

American Hostage streams on Stan (which is owned by Nine, the owner of this masthead) from September 20.

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